Georgina felt that her blushes were burning her up at thus being made the centre of public notice. She almost fell off the wheel in her haste to get down, and in doing so stumbled over a dog which suddenly emerged from under the wagon at that instant.

"Why, it's Captain Kidd!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "How ever did he get here?"

"Must have scratched under the door and trailed us," answered Richard. "Go on home, sir!" he commanded, sternly, stamping his foot. "You know they won't let you into the show with us, and you'll get into trouble if you stay downtown alone. Go on home I say."

With drooping tail and a look so reproachful that it was fairly human, Captain Kidd slunk away, starting mournfully homeward. He sneaked back in a few minutes, however, and trailed his party as far as the door of the theatre. Somebody kicked at him and he fled down the street again, retracing the trail that had led him to the wagon.

A long time after when the performance was nearly over he went swinging up the beach with something in his mouth which he had picked up from near the end of the wagon. It was a tobacco pouch of soft gray leather that had never been used for tobacco. There was something hard and round inside which felt like a bone. At the top of the Green Stairs he lay down and mouthed it a while, tugging at it with his sharp teeth; but after he had mumbled and gnawed it for some time without bringing the bone any nearer the surface, he grew tired of his newfound plaything. Dropping it in the grass, he betook himself to the door-mat on the front porch, to await his master's return.



Chapter XIV

Buried Treasure



When Georgina tiptoed up the walk to the front porch where Belle sat waiting for her in the moonlight, Tippy called down that she wasn't asleep, and they needn't stay out there on her account, whispering. It did not seem an auspicious time to present the bottle of liniment, but to Georgina's surprise Tippy seemed glad to try the new remedy. The long- continued pain which refused to yield to treatment made her willing to try anything which promised relief.

It was vile-smelling stuff, so pungent that whenever the cork was taken out of the bottle the whole house knew it, but it burned with soothing fire and Tippy rose up and called it blessed before the next day was over. Before that happened, however, Georgina took advantage of Belle's easy rule to leave home as soon as her little morning tasks were done. Strolling down the board-walk with many stops she came at last to the foot of the Green Stairs. Richard sat on the top step, tugging at a knotted string.

"Come on up," he called. "See what I've taken away from Captain Kidd. He was just starting to bury it. Looks like a tobacco pouch, but I haven't got it untied yet. He made the string all wet, gnawing on it."

Georgina climbed to the top of the steps and sat down beside him, watching in deep and silent interest. When the string finally gave way she offered her lap to receive the contents of the pouch. Two five-dollar gold pieces rolled out first, then a handful of small change, a black ring evidently whittled out of a rubber button and lastly a watch-fob ornament. It was a little compass, set in something which looked like a nut.

"I believe that's a buckeye," said Richard. He examined it carefully on all sides, then called excitedly:

"Aw, look here! See those letters scratched on the side—'D. D.'? That stands for my name, Dare-devil Dick. I'm going to keep it."

"That's the cunningest thing I ever saw," declared Georgina in a tone both admiring and envious, which plainly showed that she wished the initials were such as could be claimed by a Gory George. Then she picked up the pouch and thrust in her hand. Something rustled. It was a letter. Evidently it had been forwarded many times, for the envelope was entirely criss-crossed with names that had been written and blotted out that new ones might be added. All they could make out was "Mrs. Henry"—"Texas" and "Mass."

"I'd like to have that stamp for my album," said Richard. "It's foreign. Seems to me I've got one that looks something like it, but I'm not sure. Maybe the letter will tell who the pouch belongs to."

"But we can't read other people's letters," objected Georgina.

"Well, who wants to? It won't be reading it just to look at the head and tail, will it?"

"No," admitted Georgina, hesitatingly. "Though it does seem like peeking."

"Well, if you lost something wouldn't you rather whoever found it should peek and find out it was yours, than to have it stay lost forever?"

"Yes, I s'pose so."

"Let's look, then."

Two heads bent over the sheet spread out on Richard's knee. They read slowly in unison, "Dear friend," then turned over the paper and sought the last line. "Your grateful friend Dave."

"We don't know any more now than we did before," said Georgina, virtuously folding up the letter and slipping it back into the envelope.

"Let's take it to Uncle Darcy. Then he'll let us go along and ring the bell when he calls, 'Found.'"

Richard had two objections to this. "Who'd pay him for doing it? Besides, it's gold money, and anybody who loses that much would advertise for it in the papers. Let's keep it till this week's papers come out, and then we'll have the fun of taking it to the person who lost it."

"It wouldn't be safe for us to keep it," was Georgina's next objection. "It's gold money and burglars might find out we had it."

"Then I'll tell you"—Richard's face shone as he made the suggestion— "Let's bury it. That will keep it safe till we can find the owner, and when we dig it up we can play it's pirate gold and it'll be like finding real treasure."

"Lets!" agreed Georgina. "We can keep out something, a nickel or a dime, and when we go to dig up the pouch we can throw it over toward the place where we buried the bag and say, 'Brother, go find your brother,' the way Tom Sawyer did. Then we'll be certain to hit the spot."

Richard picked up the compass, and rubbed the polished sides of the nut in which it was set.

"I'll keep this out instead of a nickel. I wonder what the fellow's name was that this D. D. stands for?"

Half an hour later two bloody-minded sea-robbers slipped through the back gate of the Milford place and took their stealthy way out into the dunes. No fierce mustachios or hoop ear-rings marked them on this occasion as the Dread Destroyer or the Menace of the Main. The time did not seem favorable for donning their real costumes. So one went disguised as a dainty maiden in a short pink frock and long brown curls, and the other as a sturdy boy in a grass-stained linen suit with a hole in the knee of his stocking. But their speech would have betrayed their evil business had anyone been in earshot of it. One would have thought it was

"Wild Roger come again. He spoke of forays and of frays upon the Spanish Main._"

Having real gold to bury made the whole affair seem a real adventure. They were recounting to each other as they dug, the bloody fight it had taken to secure this lot of treasure.

Down in a hollow where the surrounding sandridges sheltered them from view, they crouched over a small basket they had brought with them and performed certain ceremonies. First the pouch was wrapped in many sheets of tin foil, which Richard had been long in collecting from various tobacco-loving friends. When that was done it flashed in the sun like a nugget of wrinkled silver. This was stuffed into a baking-powder can from which the label had been carefully scraped, and on whose lid had been scratched with a nail, the names Georgina Huntingdon and Richard Moreland, with the date.

"We'd better put our everyday names on it instead of our pirate names," Gory George suggested. "For if anything should happen that some other pirate dug it up first they wouldn't know who the Dread Destroyer and the Menace of the Main were."

Lastly, from the basket was taken the end of a wax candle, several matches and a stick of red sealing-wax, borrowed from Cousin James' desk. Holding the end of the sealing-wax over the lighted candle until it was soft and dripping, Richard daubed it around the edge of the can lid, as he had seen the man in the express office seal packages. He had always longed to try it himself. There was something peculiarly pleasing in the smell of melted sealing-wax. Georgina found it equally alluring. She took the stick away from him when it was about half used, and finished it.

"There won't be any to put back in Cousin James' desk if you keep on using it," he warned her.

"I'm not using any more than you did," she answered, and calmly proceeded to smear on the remainder. "If you had let me seal with the first end of the stick, you'd have had all the last end to save."

All this time Captain Kidd sat close beside them, an interested spectator, but as they began digging the hole he rushed towards it and pawed violently at each shovelful of sand thrown out.

"Aw, let him help!" Richard exclaimed when Georgina ordered him to stop. "He ought to have a part in it because he found the pouch and was starting to bury it his own self when I took it away from him and spoiled his fun."

Georgina saw the justice of the claim and allowed Captain Kidd to join in as he pleased, but no sooner did they stop digging to give him a chance than he stopped also.

"Rats!" called Richard in a shrill whisper.

At that familiar word the dog began digging so frantically that the sand flew in every direction. Each time he paused for breath Richard called "Rats" again. It doubled the interest for both children to have the dog take such frantic and earnest part in their game.

When the hole was pronounced deep enough the can was dropped in, the sand shoveled over it and tramped down, and a marker made. A long, forked stick, broken from a bayberry bush, was run into the ground so that only the fork of it was visible. Then at twenty paces from the stick, Richard stepping them off in four directions, consulting the little compass in so doing, Georgina placed the markers, four sections of a broken crock rescued from the ash-barrel and brought down in the basket for that especial purpose.

"We'll let it stay buried for a week," said Richard when all was done. "Unless somebody claims it sooner. If they don't come in a week, then we'll know they're never coming, and the gold will be ours."



Chapter XV

A Narrow Escape



Mr. Milford was stretched out in a hammock on the front porch of the bungalow when the children came back from the dunes with their empty basket. They could not see him as they climbed up the terrace, the porch being high above them and draped with vines; and he deep in a new book was only vaguely conscious of approaching voices.

They were discussing the "Rescues of Rosalind," the play they had seen the night before on the films. Their shrill, eager tones would have attracted the attention of anyone less absorbed than Mr. Milford.

"I'll bet you couldn't," Georgina was saying. "If you were gagged and bound the way Rosalind was, you couldn't get loose, no matter how you squirmed and twisted."

"Come back in the garage and try me," Richard retorted. "I'll prove it to you that I can."

"Always an automobile dashes up and there's a chase. It's been that way in every movie I ever saw," announced Georgina with the air of one who has attended nightly through many seasons.

"I can do that part all right," declared Richard. "I can run an automobile."

There was no disputing that fact, no matter how contradictory Georgina's frame of mind. Only the day before she had seen him take the wheel and run the car for three miles under the direction of Cousin James, when they came to a level stretch of road.

"Yes, but you know your Cousin James said you were never to do it unless he was along himself. You wasn't to dare to touch it when you were out with only the chauffeur."

"He wouldn't care if we got in and didn't start anything but the engine," said Richard. "Climb in and play that I'm running away with you. With the motor chugging away and shaking the machine it'll seem as if we're really going."

By this time they were inside the garage, with the doors closed behind them.

"Now you get in and keep looking back the way Rosalind did to see how near they are to catching us."

Instantly Georgina threw herself into the spirit of the game. Climbing into the back seat she assumed the pose of the kidnapped bride whose adventures had thrilled them the night before.

"Play my white veil is floating out in the wind," she commanded, "and I'm looking back and waving to my husband to come faster and take me away from the dreadful villain who is going to kill me for my jewels. I wish this car was out of doors instead of in this dark garage. When I look back I look bang against the closed door every time, aid I can't make it seem as if I was seeing far down the road."

"Play it's night," suggested Richard. He had put on a pair of goggles and was making a great pretence of getting ready to start. Georgina, leaning out as Rosalind had done, waved her lily hand in frantic beckonings for her rescuers to follow faster. The motor chugged harder and harder. The car shook violently.

To the vivid imaginations of the passengers, the chase was as exciting as if the automobile were really plunging down the road instead of throbbing steadily in one spot in the dim garage. The gas rolling up from somewhere in the back made it wonderfully realistic. But out on the open road the smell of burning gasoline would not have been so overpowering. Inside the little box-like garage it began to close in on them and settle down like a dense fog.

Georgina coughed and Richard looked back apprehensively, feeling that something was wrong, and if that queer smoke didn't stop pouring out in such a thick cloud he'd have to shut off the engine or do something. Another moment passed and he leaned forward, fumbling for the key, but he couldn't find it. He had grown queerly confused and light-headed. He couldn't make his fingers move where he wanted them to go.

He looked back at Georgina. She wasn't waving her hands any more. She was lying limply back on the seat as if too tired to play any longer. And a thousand miles away—at least it sounded that far—above the terrific noise the motor was making, he heard Captain Kidd barking. They were short, excited barks, so thin and queer, almost as thin and queer as if he were barking with the voice of a mosquito instead of his own.

And then—Richard heard nothing more, not even the noise of the motor. His hand dropped from the wheel, and he began slipping down, down from the seat to the floor of the car, white and limp, overcome like Georgina, by the fumes of the poisonous gas rolling up from the carburetor.

Mr. Milford, up in the hammock, had been vaguely conscious for several minutes of unusual sounds somewhere in the neighborhood, but it was not until he reached the end of the chapter that he took any intelligent notice. Then he looked up thinking somebody's machine was making a terrible fuss somewhere near. But it wasn't that sound which made him sit up in the hammock. It was Captain Kidd's frantic barking and yelping and whining as if something terrible was happening to him.

Standing up to stretch himself, then walking to the corner of the porch, Mr. Milford looked out. He could see the little terrier alternately scratching on the garage door and making frantic efforts to dig under it. Evidently he felt left out and was trying desperately to join his little playmates, or else he felt that something was wrong inside.

Then it came to Mr. Milford in a flash that something was wrong inside. Nobody ever touched that machine but himself and the chauffeur, and the chauffeur, who was having a day off, was half-way to Yarmouth by this time. He didn't wait to go down by the steps. With one leap he was over the railing, crashing through the vines, and running down the terrace to the garage.

As he rolled back one of the sliding doors a suffocating burst of gas rushed into his face. He pushed both doors open wide, and with a hand over his mouth and nose hurried through the heavily-charged atmosphere to shut off the motor. The fresh air rushing in, began clearing away the fumes, and he seized Georgina and carried her out, thinking she would be revived by the time he was back with Richard. But neither child stirred from the grass where he stretched them out.

As he called for the cook and the housekeeper, there flashed into his mind an account he had read recently in a New York paper, of a man and his wife who had been asphyxiated in just such a way as this. Now thoroughly alarmed, he sent the cook running down the Green Stairs to summon Richard's father from the studio, and the housekeeper to telephone in various directions. Three doctors were there in a miraculously short time, but despite all they could do at the end of half an hour both little figures still lay white and motionless.

Then the pulmotor that had been frantically telephoned for arrived from the life-saving station, and just as the man dashed up with that, Mrs. Triplett staggered up the terrace, her knees shaking so that she could scarcely manage to climb the last few steps.

Afterwards, the happenings of the day were very hazy in Georgina's mind. She had an indistinct recollection of being lifted in somebody's arms and moved about, and of feeling very sick and weak. Somebody said soothingly to somebody who was crying:

"Oh, the worst is over now. They're both beginning to come around."

Then she was in her own bed and the wild-cat from the banks of the Brazos was bending over her. At least, she thought it was the wild-cat, because she smelled the liniment as strongly as she did when she climbed up in the wagon beside it. But when she opened her eyes it was Tippy who was bending over her, smoothing her curls in a comforting, purry way, but the smell of liniment still hung in the air.

Then Georgina remembered something that must have happened before she was carried home from the bungalow—Captain Kidd squirming out of Tippy's arms, and Tippy with the tears streaming down her face trying to hold him and hug him as if he had been a person, and the Milford's cook saying: "If it hadn't been for the little beast's barkin' they'd have been dead in a few minutes more. Then there'd have been a double funeral, poor lambs."

Georgina smiled drowsily now and slipped off to sleep again, but later when she awakened the charm of the cook's phrase aroused her thoroughly, and she lay wondering what "a double funeral" was like. Would it have been at her house or Richard's? Would two little white coffins have stood side by side, or would each have been in its own place, with the two solemn processions meeting and joining at the foot of the Green Stairs. Maybe they would have put on her tombstone, "None knew her but to love her." No, that couldn't be said about her. She'd been wilfully disobedient too often for that, like the time she played with the Portuguese children on purpose to spite Tippy. She was sorry for that disobedience now, for she had discovered that Tippy was fonder of her than she had supposed. She had proved it by hugging Captain Kidd so gratefully for saving their lives, when she simply loathed dogs.

Somehow Georgina felt that she was better acquainted with Mrs. Triplett than she had ever been before, and fonder of her. Lying there in the dark she made several good resolutions. She was going to be a better girl in the future. She was going to do kind, lovely things for everybody, so that if an early tomb should claim her, every heart in town would be saddened by her going. It would be lovely to leave a widespread heartache behind her. She wished she could live such a life that there wouldn't be a dry eye in the town when it was whispered from house to house that little Georgina Huntingdon was with the angels.

She pictured Belle's grief, and Uncle Darcy's and Richard's. She had already seen Tippy's. But it was a very different thing when she thought of Barby. There was no pleasure in imagining Barby's grief. There was something too real and sharp in the pain which darted into her own heart at the thought of it. She wanted to put her arms around her mother and ward off sorrow and trouble from her and keep all tears away from those dear eyes. She wanted to grow up and take care of her darling Barby and protect her from the Tishbite.

Suddenly it occurred to Georgina that in this escape she had been kept from the power of that mysterious evil which had threatened her ever since she called it forth by doing such a wicked thing as to use the "Sacred Book" to work a charm.

She had been put to bed in the daytime, hence her evening petitions were still unsaid. Now she pulled the covers over her head and included them all in one fervent appeal:

"And keep on delivering us from the Tishbite, forever and ever, Amen!"



Chapter XVI

What the Storm Did



Next morning nearly everyone in the town was talking about the storm. Belle said what with the booming of the waves against the breakwater and the wind rattling the shutters, she hadn't slept a wink all night. It seemed as if every gust would surely take the house off its foundations.

Old Jeremy reported that it was one of the worst wind-storms ever known along the Cape, wild enough to blow all the sand dunes into the sea. They'd had the best shaking up and shifting around that they'd had in years, he declared. Captain Ames' cranberry bog was buried so deep in sand you couldn't see a blossom or a leaf. And there was sand drifted all over the garden. It had whirled clear over the wall, till the bird pool was half full of it.

Georgina listened languidly, feeling very comfortable and important with her breakfast brought in to her on a tray. Tippy thought it was too chilly for her in the dining-room where there was no fire. Jeremy had kindled a cheerful blaze on the living-room hearth and his tales of damage done to the shipping and to roofs and chimneys about town, seemed to emphasize her own safety and comfort. The only thing which made the storm seem a personal affair was the big limb blown off the willow tree.

Mrs. Triplett and Jeremy could remember a storm years ago which shifted the sand until the whole face of the Cape seemed changed. That was before the Government planted grass all over it, to bind it together with firm roots. Later when the ring of an axe told that the willow limb was being chopped in pieces, Georgina begged to be allowed to go outdoors.

"Let me go out and see the tracks of the storm," she urged. "I feel all right. I'm all over the gas now."

But Mrs. Triplett preferred to run no risks. All she said to Georgina was:

"No, after such a close call as you had yesterday you stay right here where I can keep an eye on you, and take it quietly for a day or two," but when she went into the next room Georgina heard her say to Belle:

"There's no knowing how that gas may have affected her heart."

Georgina made a face at the first speech, but the second one made her lie down languidly on the sofa with her finger on her pulse. She was half persuaded that there was something wrong with the way it beat, and was about to ask faintly if she couldn't have a little blackberry cordial with her lunch, when she heard Richard's alley call outside and Captain Kidd's quick bark.

She started up, forgetting all about the cordial and her pulse, and was skipping to the front door when Tippy hurried in from the dining-room and reached it first. She had a piece of an old coffee sack in her hand.

"Here!" she said abruptly to Richard, who was so surprised at the sudden opening of the door that he nearly fell in against her.

"You catch that dog and hold him while I wipe his feet. I can't have any dirty quadruped like that, tracking up my clean floors."

Georgina looked at the performance in amazement. Tippy scrubbing away at Captain Kidd's muddy paws till all four of them were clean, and then actually letting him come into the house and curl up on the hearth! Tippy, who never touched dogs except with the end of a broom! She could scarcely believe what her own eyes told her. She and Richard must have had a "close call," indeed, closer than either of them realized, to make such a wonderful change in Tippy.

And the change was towards Richard, too. She had never seemed to like him much better than his dog. She blamed him for taking the cream bottles when they played pirate, and she thought it made little girls boisterous and rude to play with boys, and she wondered at Barby's letting Georgina play with him. Several times she had done her wondering out loud, so that Georgina heard her, and wanted to say things back—shocking things, such as Rosa said to Joseph. But she never said them. There was always that old silver porringer, sitting prim and lady-like upon the sideboard.

Things were different to-day. After the dog's paws were wiped dry Tippy asked Richard how he felt after the accident, and she asked it as if she really cared and wanted to know. And she brought in a plate of early summer apples, the first in the market, and told him to help himself and put some in his pocket. And there was the checker-board if they wanted to play checkers or dominoes. Her unusual concern for their entertainment impressed Georgina more than anything else she could have done with the seriousness of the danger they had been in. She felt very solemn and important, and thanked Tippy with a sweet, patient air, befitting one who has just been brought up from the "valley of the shadow."

The moment they were alone Richard began breathlessly:

"Say. On the way here I went by that place where we buried the pouch, and what do you think? The markers are out of sight and the whole place itself is buried—just filled up level. What are we going to do about it?"

The seriousness of the situation did not impress Georgina until he added, "S'pose the person who lost it comes back for it? Maybe we'd be put in prison."

"But nobody knows it's buried except you and me."

Richard scuffed one shoe against the other and looked into the fire.

"But Aunt Letty says there's no getting around it, 'Be sure your sin will find you out,' always. And I'm awfully unlucky that way. Seems to me I never did anything in my life that I oughtn't to a done, that I didn't get found out. Aunt Letty has a book that she reads to me sometimes when I'm going to bed, that proves it. Every story in it proves it. One is about a traveler who murdered a man, and kept it secret for twenty years. Then he gave it away, talking in his sleep. And one was a feather in a boy's coat pocket. It led to its being found out that he was a chicken thief. There's about forty such stories, and everyone of them prove your sin is sure to find you out some time before you die, even if you cover it up for years and years."

"But we didn't do any sin," protested Georgina. "We just buried a pouch that the dog found, to keep it safe, and if a big wind came along and covered it up so we can't find it, that isn't our fault. We didn't make the wind blow, did we?"

"But there was gold money in that pouch," insisted Richard, "and it wasn't ours, and maybe the letter was important and we ought to have turned it over to Dad or Uncle Darcy or the police or somebody."

Aunt Letty's bedtime efforts to keep Richard's conscience tender were far more effective than she had dreamed. He was quoting Aunt Letty now.

"We wouldn't want anybody to do our things that way." Then a thought of his own came to him, "You wouldn't want the police coming round and taking you off to the lockup, would you? I saw 'em take Binney Rogers one time, just because he broke a window that he didn't mean to. He was only shying a rock at a sparrow. There was a cop on each side of him a hold of his arm, and Binney's mother and sister were following along behind crying and begging them not to take him something awful. But all they could say didn't do a speck of good."

The picture carried weight. In spite of her light tone Georgina was impressed, but she said defiantly:

"Well, nobody saw us do it."

"You don't know," was the gloomy answer. "Somebody might have been up in the monument with a spy glass, looking down. There's always people up there spying around, or out on the masts in the harbor, and if some sleuth was put on the trail of that pouch the first thing that would happen would be he'd come across the very person with the glass. It always happens that way, and I know, because Binney Rogers has read almost all the detective stories there is, and he said so."

A feeling of uneasiness began to clutch at Georgina's interior. Richard spoke so knowingly and convincingly that she felt a real need for blackberry cordial. But she said with a defiant little uplift of her chin:

"Well, as long as we didn't mean to do anything wrong, I'm not going to get scared about it. I'm just going to bear up and steer right on, and keep hoping that everything will turn out all right so hard that it will."

Her "line to live by" buoyed her up so successfully for the time being, that Richard, too, felt the cheerful influence of it, and passed to more cheerful subjects.

"We're going to be in all the papers," he announced. "A reporter called up from Boston to ask Cousin James how it happened. There's only been a few cases like ours in the whole United States. Won't you feel funny to see your name in the paper? Captain Kidd will have his name in, too. I heard Cousin James say over the telephone that he was the hero of the hour; that if he hadn't given the alarm we wouldn't have been discovered till it was too late."

Richard did not stay long. The finished portrait was to be hung in the Art gallery in the Town Hall that morning and he wanted to be on hand at the hanging. Later it would be sent to the New York exhibition.

"Daddy's going to let me go with him when Mr. Locke comes for him on his yacht. He's going to take me because I sat still and let him get such a good picture. It's the best he's ever done. We'll be gone a week."

"When are you going?" demanded Georgina.

"Oh, in a few days, whenever Mr. Locke comes."

"I hope we can find that pouch first," she answered. Already she was beginning to feel little and forlorn and left behind. "It'll be awful lonesome with you and Barby both gone."

Tippy came in soon after Richard left and sat down at the secretary.

"I've been thinking I ought to write to your mother and let her know about yesterday's performance before she has a chance to hear it from outsiders or the papers. It's a whole week to-day since she left."

"A week," echoed Georgina. "Is that all? It seems a month at least. It's been so long."

Mrs. Triplett tossed her a calendar from the desk.

"Count it up for yourself," she said. "She left two days before your birthday and this is the Wednesday after."

While Mrs. Triplett began her letter Georgina studied the calendar, putting her finger on a date as she recalled the various happenings of it. Each day had been long and full. That one afternoon when she and Richard found the paper in the rifle seemed an age in itself. It seemed months since they had promised Belle and Uncle Darcy to keep the secret.

She glanced up, about to say so, then bit her tongue, startled at having so nearly betrayed the fact of their having a secret. Then the thought came to her that Emmett's sin had found him out in as strange a way as that of the man who talked in his sleep or the chicken thief to whom the feather clung. It was one more proof added to the forty in Aunt Letty's book. Richard's positiveness made a deeper impression on her than she liked to acknowledge. She shut her eyes a moment, squinting them up so tight that her eyelids wrinkled, and hoped as hard as she could hope that everything would turn out all right.

"What on earth is the matter with you, child?" exclaimed Tippy, looking up from her letter in time to catch Georgina with her face thus screwed into wrinkles.

Georgina opened her eyes with a start.

"Nothing," was the embarrassed answer. "I was just thinking."



Chapter XVII

In the Keeping of the Dunes



Scarcely had Georgina convinced herself by the calendar that it had been only one short week since Barby went away instead of the endlessly long time it seemed, than a letter was brought in to her.

"My Dear Little Rainbow-maker," it began.

"You are surely a prism your own self, for you have made a blessed bright spot in the world for me, ever since you came into it. I read your letter to papa, telling all about your birthday and the prism Uncle Darcy gave you. It cheered him up wonderfully. I was so proud of you when he said it was a fine letter, and that he'd have to engage you as a special correspondent on his paper some day.

"At first the doctors thought his sight was entirely destroyed, by the flying glass of the broken windshield, but now they are beginning to hope that one eye at least may be saved, and possibly the other. Papa is very doubtful about it himself, and gets very despondent at times. He had just been having an especially blue morning when your letter was brought in, and he said, when I read it:

"'That is a good line to live by, daughter,' and he had me get out his volume of Milton and read the whole sonnet that the line is taken from. The fact that Milton was blind when he wrote it made it specially interesting to him.

"He and mamma both need me sorely now for a little while, Baby dear, and if you can keep busy and happy without me I'll stay away a couple of weeks longer and help take him home to Kentucky, but I can't be contented to stay unless you send me a postal every day. If nothing more is on it than your name, written by your own little fingers, it will put a rainbow around my troubles and help me to be contented away from you."

Georgina spent the rest of the morning answering it. She had a feeling that she must make up for her father's neglect as a correspondent, by writing often herself. Maybe the family at Grandfather Shirley's wouldn't notice that there was never any letter with a Chinese stamp on it, addressed in a man's big hand in Barby's pile of mail, if there were others for her to smile over.

It had been four months since the last one came. Georgina had kept careful count, although she had not betrayed her interest except in the wistful way she watched Barby when the postman came. It made her throat ache to see that little shadow of disappointment creep into Barby's lovely gray eyes and then see her turn away with her lips pressed together tight for a moment before she began to hum or speak brightly about something else. No Chinese letter had come in her absence to be forwarded.

Georgina wished her father could know how very much Barby cared about hearing from him. Maybe if his attention were called to it he would write oftener. If the editor of a big newspaper like Grandfather Shirley, thought her letters were good enough to print, maybe her father might pay attention to one of them. A resolve to write to him some day began to shape itself in her mind.

She would have been surprised could she have known that already one of her epistles was on its way to him. Barby had sent him the "rainbow letter." For Barby had not drawn off silent and hurt when his letters ceased to come, as many a woman would have done.

"Away off there in the interior he has missed the mails," she told herself. "Or the messenger he trusted may have failed to post his letters, or he may be ill. I'll not judge him until I know."

After Georgina's letter came she resolutely put her forebodings and misgivings aside many a time, prompted by it to steer onward so steadily that hope must do as Uncle Darcy said, "make rainbows even of her tears."

Georgina wrote on until dinner time, telling all about the way she had spent her birthday dollar. After dinner when the sunshine had dried all traces of the previous night's rain, she persuaded Tippy that she was entirely over the effects of the gas, and perfectly able to go down street and select the picture postals with which to conduct her daily correspondence.

Richard joined her as she passed the bungalow. They made a thrilling afternoon for themselves by whispering to each other whenever any strange-looking person passed them, "S'pose that was the owner of the pouch and he was looking for us." The dread of their sin finding them out walked like a silent-footed ghost beside them all the way, making the two pairs of brown eyes steal furtive glances at each other now and then, and delicious little shivers of apprehension creep up and down their backs.

Whether it was the passing of the unseasonable weather into hot July sunshine again or whether the wild-cat liniment was responsible, no one undertook to say, but Mrs. Triplett's rheumatism left her suddenly, and at a time when she was specially glad to be rid of it. The Sewing Circle, to which she belonged, was preparing for a bazaar at the Church of the Pilgrims, and her part in it would keep her away from home most of the time for three days.

That is why Georgina had unlimited freedom for a while. She was left in Belle's charge, and Belle, still brooding over her troubles, listlessly assented to anything proposed to her. Belle had been allowed to go and come as she pleased when she was ten, and she saw no reason why Georgina was not equally capable of taking care of herself.

Hardly was Mrs. Triplett out of sight that first morning when Georgina slipped out of the back gate with a long brass-handled fire-shovel, to meet Richard out on the dunes. He brought a hoe, and in his hand was the little compass imbedded in the nut.

When all was ready, according to Georgina's instructions, he turned around three times, then facing the east tossed the compass over his shoulder, saying solemnly, "Brother, go find your brother." She stood ready to mark the spot when it should fall, but Captain Kidd was ahead of her and had the nut in his teeth before she could reach the place where it had touched the ground. So Richard took the nut away and held the agitated little terrier by the collar while Georgina went through the same ceremony.

This time Richard reached the nut before the dog, and drew a circle around the spot where it had lain. Then he began digging into the sand with the hoe so industriously that Captain Kidd was moved to frantic barking.

"Here, get to work yourself and keep quiet," ordered Richard. "Rats! You'll have Cousin James coming out to see what we're doing, first thing you know. He thinks something is the matter now, every time you bark. Rats! I say."

The magic word had its effect. After an instant of quivering eagerness the dog pounced into the hole which Richard had started, and sent the sand flying furiously around him with his active little paws. Georgina dragged the accumulating piles aside with the fire-shovel on one side, and Richard plied the hoe on the other. When the hole grew too deep for Captain Kidd to dig in longer, Richard stepped in and went deeper. But it was unsatisfactory work. The shifting sand, dry as powder at this depth, was constantly caving in and filling up the space.

They tried making new holes, to the north of the old one, then to the south, then on the remaining sides. They were still at it when the whistle at the cold-storage plant blew for noon. Georgina rubbed a sleeve across her red, perspiring face, and shook the ends of her curls up and down to cool her hot neck.

"I don't see how we can dig any more to-day," she said wearily. "The sun is blistering. I feel all scorched."

"I've had enough," confessed Richard. "But we've got to find that pouch."

After a moment's rest, leaning on the hoe-handle, he had an inspiration. "Let's get Manuel and Joseph and Rosa to help us. They'd dig all day for a nickel."

"I haven't one nickel left," said Georgina. Then she thought a moment. "But I could bring some jelly-roll. Those Fayals would dig for eats as quick as they would for money. I'll tell Belle we're going to have a sort of a picnic over here and she'll let me bring all that's left in the cake box."

Richard investigated his pockets. A solitary nickel was all he could turn out. "Two cents for each of the boys and one for Rosa," he said, but Georgina shook her head.

"Rosa would make trouble if you divided that way. She'd howl till somebody came to see what was the matter. But we could do this way. The one who gets the least money gets the most jelly-roll. We'll wait till the digging is over and then let them divide it to suit themselves."

By five o'clock that afternoon, the compass had been sent to "hunt brother" in a hundred different places, and the hollow circled by the bayberry bushes and beach plums where the pouch had been hidden filled with deep holes. Captain Kidd had responded to the repeated call of "Rats" until the magic word had lost all charm for him. Even a dog comes to understand in time when a fellow creature has "an axe to grind." Finally, he went off and lay down, merely wagging his tail in a bored way when any further effort was made to arouse his enthusiasm.

The Fayal children, working valiantly in the trenches, laid down arms at last and strolled home, their faces streaked with jelly-roll, and Georgina went wearily up the beach, dragging her fire-shovel after her. She felt that she had had enough of the dunes to last her the rest of her natural lifetime. She seemed to see piles of sand even when she looked at the water or when her eyes were shut.

"But we won't give up," she said staunchly as she parted from Richard. "We're obliged to find that pouch, so we've got to keep hope at the prow."

"Pity all this good digging has to be wasted," said Richard, looking around at the various holes. "If it had all been in one place, straight down, it would have been deep enough to strike a pirate's chest by this time. I hope they'll fill up before anybody comes this way to notice them."

"Somehow, I'm not so anxious as I was to go off 'a-piratin' so bold,'" said Georgina with a tired sigh. "I've had enough digging to last me forever and always, amen."

The Fayal children, surfeited with one afternoon of such effort, and not altogether satisfied as to the division of wages which had led to war in their midst, did not come back to the Place of the Pouch next morning, but Richard and Georgina appeared promptly, albeit with sore muscles and ebbing enthusiasm. Only stern necessity and fear of consequences kept them at their task.

Cousin James had reported that there was a fishing vessel in that morning with two enormous horse mackerel in the catch, which were to be cut up and salted at Railroad wharf. It was deliciously cool down on the wharf, with the breeze blowing off the water through the great packing shed, and the white sails scudding past the open doors like fans. With Mrs. Triplett busy with the affairs of the Bazaar, it would have been a wonderful opportunity for Georgina to have gone loitering along the pier, watching the summer people start off in motor boats or spread themselves lazily under flapping sails for a trip around the harbor.

But something of the grim spirit of their ancestors, typified by the monument looking down on them from the hill, nerved both Richard and Georgina one more time to answer to the stern call of Duty.



Chapter XVIII

Found Out



"I dreamed about that old pouch last night," said Richard in one of the intervals of rest which they allowed themselves.

"I dreamed that it belonged to a Chinese man with crooked, yellow finger- nails a foot long. He came and stood over my bed and said that because there was important news in that letter and we buried it, and kept it from going to where it ought to go, we had to be buried alive. And he picked me up like I was that nut and tossed me over his shoulder, and said, 'Brother, go find your brother.' And I began sinking down in the sand deeper and deeper until I began to smother."

Georgina made no answer. The dream did not impress her as being at all terrifying. She had swung her prism around her neck that morning when she dressed, and now while she rested she amused herself by flashing the bars of color across Captain Kidd. Richard resented her lack of interest.

"Well, it may not sound very bad out here in the daylight, but you ought to have had it. I yelled until Daddy shook me and told me I'd wake up the whole end of town with such a nightmare. If you'd have seen that old Chinaman's face like a dragon's, you'd understand why I feel that we've just got to find that pouch. It's going to get us into some kind of trouble, certain sure, if we don't."

Georgina rose to begin digging again. "It's lucky nobody ever comes this way to see all these holes," she began, but stopped with her shovel half lifted. A familiar voice from the circle of bushes at the top of the dune called down cheerily:

"Ship ahoy, mates. What port are you bound for now? Digging through to China?"

"It's Uncle Darcy!" they exclaimed in the same breath. He came plunging down the side of the dune before they could recover from their confusion. There was a pail of blueberries in each hand. He had been down the state road picking them, and was now on his way to the Gray Inn to sell them to the housekeeper. Leaving the pails in a level spot under the shade of a scrubby bush, he came on to where the children were standing, and eased himself stiffly down to a seat on the sand. It amused him to see their evident embarrassment, and his eyes twinkled as he inquired:

"What mischief are you up to now, digging all those gopher holes?"

Neither answered for a moment, then Georgina gulped and found her voice. "It's—it's a secret," she managed to say.

"Oh," he answered, growing instantly grave at the sound of that word. "Then I mustn't ask any questions. We must always keep our secrets. Sometimes it's a pity though, when one has to promise to do so. I hope yours isn't the burden to you that mine is to me."

This was the first time he had spoken to them of the promise they had made to him and Belle. With a look all around as if to make certain the coast was clear, he said:

"There's something I've been wanting to say to you children ever since that day you had the rifle, and now's as good a chance as any. I want you to know that I never would have promised what I did if it could have made any possible difference to Mother. But lately she seems all confused about Danny's trouble. She seems to have forgotten there was any trouble except that he went away from home. For months she's been looking for him to walk in most any day.

"Ever since I gave my word to Belle, I've been studying over the right and wrong of it. I felt I wasn't acting fair to Danny. But now it's clear in my mind that it was the right thing to do. I argue it this way. Danny cared so much about saving Emmett from disgrace and Belle from the pain of finding it out, that he was willing to give up his home and good name and everything. Now it wouldn't be fair to him to make that sacrifice in vain by telling while it can still be such a death-blow to Emmett's father and hurt Belle much as ever. She's gone on all these years fairly worshiping Emmett's memory for being such a hero."

Uncle Darcy stopped suddenly and seemed to be drawn far away from them as if he had gone inside of himself with his own thoughts and forgotten their presence. Georgina sat and fanned herself with her shade hat. Richard fumbled with the little compass, rolling it from one hand to the other, without giving any thought to what he was doing. Presently it rolled away from him and Captain Kidd darted after it, striking it with his forepaws as he landed on it, and thus rolling it still farther till it stopped at the old man's feet.

Recalled to his surroundings in this way, Uncle Darcy glanced at the object indifferently, but something strangely familiar in its appearance made him lean closer and give it another look. He picked it up, examining it eagerly. Then he stood up and gazed all around as if it had dropped from the sky and he expected to see the hand that had dropped it.

"Where did you get this?" he demanded huskily, in such a queer, breathless way that Richard thought his day of reckoning had come. His sin had found him out. He looked at Georgina helplessly.

"Yes, tell!" she exclaimed, answering his look.

"I—I—just played it was mine," he began. "'Cause the initials on it are the same as mine when we play pirate and I'm Dare-devil Dick. I was only going to keep it till we dug up the pouch again. We were keeping it to help find the pouch like Tom Sawyer did—"

It seemed to Richard that Uncle Darcy's hand, clutching his shoulder, was even more threatening than the Chinaman's of his nightmare, and his voice more imperative.

"Tell me! Where did you get it? That's my compass! I scratched those letters on that nut. 'D. D.' stands for Dan'l Darcy. I brought it home from my last voyage. 'Twas a good-luck nut they told me in the last port I sailed from. It was one of the first things Danny ever played with. There's the marks of his first little tooth under those letters. I gave it to him when he got old enough to claim it, for the letters were his, too. He always carried it in his pocket and he had it with him when he went away. For the love of heaven, child, tell me where you found it?"

The hand which clutched Richard's shoulder was shaking as violently as it had the day the old rifle gave up its secret, and Richard, feeling the same unnamable terror he had felt in his nightmare, could only stammer, "I—I don't know. Captain Kidd found it."

Then all three of them started violently, for a hearty voice just behind them called out unexpectedly:

"Hullo, what's all the excitement about?"

It was Captain James Milford, who had strolled down from the bungalow, his hat stuck jauntily on the back of his head, and his hands in his pockets. A few moments before he had been scanning the harbor through a long spy-glass, and happening to turn it towards the dunes had seen the two children digging diligently with shovel and hoe.

"Looks as if they'd started to honey-comb the whole Cape with holes," he thought. "Curious how many things kids of that age can think of. It might be well to step down and see what they're about."

He put up the spy-glass and started down, approaching them on one side as the Towncrier reached them on the other.

"Now for a yarn that'll make their eyes stand out," he thought with a smile as he saw the old man sit down on the sand.

"Wonder if it would sound as thrilling now as it did when I was Dick's age. I believe I'll just slip up and listen to one for old times' sake."

Uncle Darcy let go of Richard's shoulder and turned to the newcomer appealingly.

"Jimmy," he said with a choke in his voice. "Look at this! The first trace of my boy since he left me, and they can't tell me where they got it."

He held out the compass and Mr. Milford took it from his trembling fingers.

"Why, I remember this old trinket, Uncle Dan'l!" exclaimed Mr. Milford. "You let me carry it in my pocket one day when I was no bigger than Dicky, here, when you took me fishing with you. I thought it was responsible for my luck, for I made my first big catch that day. Got a mackerel that I bragged about all season."

Uncle Darcy seized the man's arm with the same desperate grip which had held the boy's.

"You don't seem to understand!" he exclaimed. "I'm trying to tell you that Danny is mixed up with this in some way. Either he's been near here or somebody else has who's seen him. He had this with him when he went away, I tell you. These children say they took it out of a pouch that the dog found. Help me, Jimmy. I can't seem to think—"

He sat weakly down on the sand again, his head in his hands, and Mr. Milford, deeply interested, turned to the children. His questions called out a confusing and involved account, told piecemeal by Georgina and Richard in turn.

"Hold on, now, let's get the straight of this," he interrupted, growing more bewildered as the story proceeded. "What was in the pouch besides the gold pieces, the other money and this compass?"

"A letter with a foreign stamp on it," answered Richard. "I noticed specially, because I have a stamp almost like it in my album."

On being closely cross-questioned he could not say positively to what country the stamp belonged. He thought it was Siam or China. Georgina recalled several names of towns partially scratched out on the back of the envelope, and the word Texas. She was sure of that and of "Mass." and of "Mrs. Henry—" something or other.

"But the inside of the letter," persisted Mr. Milford. "Didn't you try to read that?"

"Course not," said Georgina, her head indignantly high. "We only looked at each end of it to see if the person's name was on it, but it began, 'Dear friend,' and ended, 'Your grateful friend Dave.'"

"So the letter was addressed 'Mrs.'" began Mr. Milford, musingly, "but was in a tobacco pouch. The first fact argues that a woman lost it, the last that it was a man."

"But it didn't smell of tobacco," volunteered Georgina. "It was nice and clean only where Captain Kidd chewed the string."

"I suppose it didn't have any smell at all," said Mr. Milford, not as if he expected anyone to remember, but that he happened to think of it. A slowly dawning recollection began to brighten in Georgina's eyes.

"But it did have a smell," she exclaimed. "I remember it perfectly well now. Don't you know, Richard, when you were untying it at the top of the steps I said 'Phew! that makes me think of the liniment I bought from the wild-cat woman last night,' I had to hold the bottle in my lap all the time we were at the moving picture show so I had a chance to get pretty well acquainted with that smell. And afterwards when we were wrapping the tin foil around the pouch, getting ready to bury it we both turned up our noses at the way it smelled. It seemed stronger when the sun shone on it."

"The wild-cat woman," repeated Mr. Milford, turning on Georgina. "Where was she? What did you have to do with her? Was the dog with you?"

Little by little they began to recall the evening, how they had started to the show with the Fayal family and turned aside to hear the patent medicine man sing, how Richard and Georgina had dared each other to touch the wild-cat's tail through the bars, and how Georgina in climbing down from the wheel had stumbled over Captain Kidd whom they thought safely shut up at home.

"I believe we've found a clue," said Mr. Milford at last. "If anybody in town had lost it there'd have been a notice put up in the post-office or the owner would have been around for you to cry it, Uncle Dan'l. But if it's the wild-cat woman's she probably did not discover her loss till she was well out of town, and maybe not until she reached her next stopping- place."

"There's been nothing of the sort posted on the bulletin board at the post-office," said the old man. "I always glance in at it every morning."

Mr. Milford looked at him thoughtfully as if considering something. Then he said slowly:

"Uncle Dan'l, just how much would it mean to you to find the owner of that pouch?"

"Why, Jimmy," was the tremulous answer, "if it led to any trace of my boy it would be the one great hope of my life realized."

"You are quite sure that you want to bring him back? That it would be best for all concerned?" he continued meaningly.

There was a silence, then the old man answered with dignity:

"I know what you're thinking of, and considering all that's gone before, I'm not blaming you, but I can tell you this, Jimmy Milford. If the town could know all that I know it'd be glad and proud to have my boy brought back to it."

He smote the fist of one hand into the palm of the other and looked about like something trapped, seeking escape.

"It isn't fair!" he exclaimed. "It isn't fair! Him worthy to hold up his head with the best of them, and me bound not to tell. But I've given my promise," he added, shaking his head slowly from side to side. "I s'pose it'll all work out for the best, somehow, in the Lord's own good time, but I can't seem to see the justice in it now."

He sat staring dejectedly ahead of him with dim, appealing eyes.

The younger man took a step forward and laid an arm across the bent shoulders.

"All right, Uncle Dan'l," he said heartily. "If there's anything under the sun I can do to help you I'm going to do it, beginning right now. Come on up to the house and I'll begin this Sherlock Holmes business by telephoning down the Cape to every town on it till we locate this wild- cat liniment wagon, and then we'll get after it as fast as the best automobile in Provincetown can take us."



Chapter XIX

Tracing the Liniment Wagon



To Wellfleet, to Orleans, to Chatham went the telephone call, to Harwichport and then back again to the little towns on the bay side of the Cape, for the wild-cat and its keepers did not follow a straight course in their meanderings. It was some time before Mr. Milford succeeded in locating them. At last he hung up the receiver announcing:

"They showed in Orleans last night all right, but it wasn't the road to Chatham they took out of there this morning. It was to Brewster. We can easily overtake them somewhere along in that direction and get back home before dark."

There was one ecstatic moment for Georgina when it was made clear to her that she was included in that "we"; that she was actually to have a share in an automobile chase like the ones that had thrilled her in the movies. But that moment was soon over.

"I hardly know what to do about leaving Mother," began Uncle Darcy in a troubled voice. "She's feeling uncommon poorly to-day—she's in bed and can't seem to remember anything longer than you're telling it. Mrs. Saggs came in to sit with her while I was out blueberrying, but she said she couldn't stay past ten o'clock. She has company coming."

"Couldn't you get some of the other neighbors to come in for the few hours you'd be away?" asked Mr. Milford. "It's important you should follow up this clue yourself."

"No, Mrs. Saggs is the only one who keeps Mother from fretting when I'm away from her. Her side window looks right into our front yard, and ordinarily it would be enough just for her to call across to her now and then, but it wouldn't do to-day, Mother not being as well as common. She'd forget where I was gone and I couldn't bear to have her lying there frightened and worried and not remembering why I had left her alone. She's like a child at times. You know how it is," he said, turning to Georgina. "Not flighty, but just needing to be soothed and talked to."

Georgina nodded. She knew, for on several occasions she had sat beside Aunt Elspeth when she was in such a mood, and had quieted and pleased her with little songs and simple rhymes. She knew she could do it again to-day as effectually as Mrs. Saggs, if it wasn't for giving up that exciting motor chase after the wild-cat woman. It seemed to her a greater sacrifice than flesh and blood should be called upon to make. She sat on the porch step, twirling her prism carelessly on its pink ribbon while she waited for the machine to be brought around. Then she climbed into the back seat with Uncle Darcy and the two pails of blueberries, while Richard settled himself and Captain Kidd in front with his Cousin James.

They whirled up to the Gray Inn to leave the blueberries, and then around down Bradford Street to Fishburn Court to attempt to explain to Aunt Elspeth. On the way they passed the Pilgrim monument. Georgina tried not to look at it, but she couldn't help glancing up at it from the corner of her eye.

"You must," it seemed to say to her.

"I won't," she as silently answered back.

"It's your duty," it reminded her, "and the idea of a descendant of one of the Pilgrim Fathers and one of the Minute-men shirking her duty. A pretty member of the Rainbow Club you are," it scoffed.

They whirled by the grim monster of a monument quickly, but Georgina felt impelled to turn and look back at it, her gaze following it up higher and higher, above the gargoyles, to the tipmost stones which seemed to touch the sky.

"I hate that word Duty," she said savagely to herself. "It's as big and ugly and as always-in-front-of-you as that old monument. They're exactly alike. You can't help seeing them no matter which way you look or how hard you try not to."

At the gate she tried to put the obnoxious word out of her mind by leaning luxuriously back in the car and looking up at the chimney tops while Uncle Darcy stepped out and went into the house. He came out again almost immediately, crossed the little front yard and put his head in at Mrs. Saggs' side window. After a short conversation with her he came out to the gate and stood irresolutely fingering the latch.

"I don't know what to do," he repeated, his voice even more troubled than before. "Mother's asleep now. Mrs. Saggs says she'll go over at twelve and take her her tea, but—I can't help feeling I ought not to leave her alone for so long. Couldn't you manage without me?"

And then, Georgina inwardly protesting, "I don't want to and I won't," found herself stepping out of the car, and heard her own voice saying sweetly:

"I'll stay with Aunt Elspeth, Uncle Darcy. I can keep her from fretting."

A smile of relief broke over the old man's face and he said heartily:

"Why, of course you can, honey. It never occurred to me to ask a little lass like you to stop and care for her, but you can do it better than anybody else, because Mother's so fond of you."

Neither had it occurred to him or to either of the others that it was a sacrifice for her to give up this ride. There was not a word from anyone about its being a noble thing for her to do. Mr. Milford, in a hurry to be off, merely nodded his satisfaction at having the matter arranged so quickly. Uncle Darcy stepped back to the window for a parting word with Mrs. Saggs.

"She'll keep an ear out for you, Georgina," he said as he went back to the car. "Just call her if you want her for any reason. There's plenty cooked in the cupboard for your dinner, and Mrs. Saggs will tend to Mother's tea when the time comes. When she wakes up and asks for me best not tell her I'm out of town. Just say I'll be back bye and bye, and humor her along that way."

And then they were off with a whirr and a clang that sent the chickens in the road scattering in every direction. Georgina was left standing by the gate thinking, "What made me do it? What made me do it? I don't want to stay one bit."

The odor of gasoline cleared away and the usual Sabbath-like stillness settled down over all the court. She walked slowly across the shady little grass plot to the front door, hesitated there a moment, then went into the cottage and took off her hat.

A glance into the dim bedroom beyond showed her Aunt Elspeth's white head lying motionless on her pillow. The sight of the quiet sleeper made her feel appallingly lonesome. It was like being all by herself in the house to be there with one who made no sound or movement. She would have to find something to do. It was only eleven o'clock. She tiptoed out into the kitchen.

The almanac had been left lying on the table. She looked slowly through it, and was rewarded by finding something of interest. On the last page was a column of riddles, and one of them was so good she started to memorize it so that she could propound it to Richard. She was sure he never could guess it. Finding it harder to remember than it seemed at first glance, she decided to copy it. She did not know where to look for a sheet of paper, but remembered several paper bags on the pantry shelves, so she went in search of one. Finding one with only a cupful of sugar left in it, she tore off the top and wrote the riddle on that with a stub of a pencil which she found on the table.

While searching for the bag she took an inventory of the supplies in the pantry from which she was to choose her dinner. When she had finished copying the riddle she went back to them. There were baked beans and blueberry pie, cold biscuit and a dish of honey.

"I'll get my dinner now," she decided, "then I'll be ready to sit with Aunt Elspeth when her tea comes."

As Georgina went back and forth from table to shelf it was in unconscious imitation of Mrs. Triplett's brisk manner. Pattering after that capable housekeeper on her busy rounds as persistently as Georgina had done all her life, had taught her to move in the same way. Presently she discovered that there was a fire laid in the little wood stove ready to light. The stove was so small in comparison to the big kitchen range at home, that it appealed to Georgina as a toy stove might have done. She stood looking at it thinking what fun it would be to cook something on it all by herself with no Tippy standing by to say do this or don't do the other.

"I think I ought to be allowed to have some fun to make up for my disappointment," she said to herself as the temptation grew stronger and stronger.

"I could cook me an egg. Tippy lets me beat them but she never lets me break them and I've always wanted to break one and let it go plunk into the pan."

She did not resist the temptation long. There was the sputter of a match, the puff of a flame, and the little stove was roaring away so effectively that one of old Jeremy's sayings rose to her lips. Jeremy had a proverb for everything.

"Little pot, soon hot," she said out loud, gleefully, and reached into the cupboard for the crock of bran in which the eggs were kept. Then Georgina's skill as an actor showed itself again, although she was not conscious of imitating anyone. In Tippy's best manner she wiped out the frying-pan, settled it in a hot place on the stove, dropped in a bit of butter.

With the assured air of one who has had long practice, she picked up an egg and gave it a sharp crack on the edge of the pan, expecting it to part evenly into halves and its contents to glide properly into the butter. It looked so alluringly simple and easy that she had always resented Tippy's saying she would make a mess of it if she tried to do it. But mess was the only name which could be given to what poured out on the top of the stove as her fingers went crashing through the shell and into the slimy feeling contents. The broken yolk dripped from her hands, and in the one instant she stood holding them out from her in disgust, all the rest of the egg which had gone sliding over the stove, cooked, scorched and turned to a cinder.

The smell and smoke of the burning egg rose to the ceiling and filled the room. Georgina sprang to close the door so that the odor would not rouse Aunt Elspeth, and then with carving knife and stove-lid lifter, she scraped the charred remains into the fire.

"And it looked so easy," she mourned. "Maybe I didn't whack it quickly enough. I'm going to try again." She felt into the bran for another egg. This time she struck the shell so hard that its contents splashed out sideways with an unexpected squirt and slid to the floor. She was ready to cry as she wiped up the slippery stuff, but there came to her mind some verses which Tippy had taught her long ago. And so determined had Tippy been for her to learn them, that she offered the inducement of a string of blue beads. The name of the poem was "Perseverance," and it began:

"Here's a lesson all should heed— Try, try again. If at first you don't succeed, Try, try again."

and it ended,

"That which other folks can do Why with patience may not you? Try, try again."

Tippy sowed that seed the same winter that she taught Georgina "The Landing of the Pilgrims"; but surely, no matter how long a time since then, Tippy should be held accountable for the after effects of that planting. If Georgina persevered it was no more than could be expected considering her rigorous up-bringing.

Georgina pushed the frying-pan to the back of the stove where it was cooler, and with her red lips pursed into a tight line, chose another egg, smote it sharply on the edge of the pan, thereby cracking it and breaking the shell into halves. Her thumbs punched through into the yolk of this one also, but by letting part of the shell drop with it, she managed to land it all in the pan. That was better. She fished out the fragment of shell and took another egg.

This time the feat was accomplished as deftly as an exoert chef could have done it, and a pleased smile took the place of the grim determination on Georgina's face. Elated by her success she broke another egg, then another and another. It was as easy as breathing or winking. She broke another for the pure joy of putting her dexterity to the test once more. Then she stopped, appalled by the pile of empty shells confronting her accusingly. She counted them. She had broken eight— three-fourths of a setting. What would Uncle Darcy say to such a wicked waste? She could burn the shells, but what an awful lot of insides to dispose of. All mixed up as they were, they couldn't be saved for cake. There was nothing to do but to scramble them.

Scramble them she did, and the pan seemed to grow fuller and fuller as she tossed the fluffy mass about with a fork. It was fun doing that. She made the most of this short space of time, and it was over all too soon. She knew that Aunt Elspeth had grown tired of eggs early in the summer. There was no use saving any for her. Georgina herself was not especially fond of them, but she would have to eat all she could to keep them from being wasted.

Some time after she rose from the table and looked at the dish with a feeling of disgust that there could still be such a quantity left, after she had eaten so much that it was impossible to enjoy even a taste of the blueberry pie or the honey. Carrying the dish out through the back door she emptied it into the cats' pan, fervently wishing that John and Mary Darcy and old Yellownose could dispose of it all without being made ill.

Long ago she had learned to do her sums in the sand. Now she stooped down and with the handle of her spoon scratched some figures in the path. "If twelve eggs cost thirty cents, how much will eight eggs cost?" That was the sum she set for herself. Only that morning she had heard Tippy inquire the price of eggs from the butter-woman, and say they were unusually high and hard to get because they were so many summer people in town this season. She didn't know where they were going to get enough for all the cakes necessary for the Bazaar.

It took Georgina some time to solve the problem. Then going back to the kitchen she gathered up all the shells and dropped them into the fire. Her sacrifice was costing her far more than she had anticipated. Somehow, somewhere, she must get hold of twenty cents to pay for those eggs. Duty again. Always Duty. But for that one horrid word she would be racing down the road to Brewster in the wake of the wild-cat woman. She wondered if they had caught up with her yet.



Chapter XX

Dance of the Rainbow Fairies



Georgina, intent on washing the frying-pan and cleaning the last vestige of burnt egg from the top of the stove, did not hear Mrs. Saggs come in at the front door with Aunt Elspeth's dinner on a tray. Nor did she hear the murmur of voices that went on while it was being eaten. The bedroom was in the front of the house, and the rasping noise she was making as she scratched away with the edge of an iron spoon, kept her from hearing anything else. So when the door into the kitchen suddenly opened it gave her such a start that she dropped the dishcloth into the woodbox.

Mrs. Saggs sniffed suspiciously. There was something reproachful in the mere tilt of her nose which Georgina felt and resented.

"I thought I smelled something burning."

"I s'pect you did," Georgina answered calmly. "But it's all over now. I was getting my dinner early, so's I could sit with Aunt Elspeth afterward."

Mrs. Saggs had both hands full, as she was carrying her tray, so she could not open the stove to look in; but she walked over towards it and peered at it from a closer viewpoint, continuing to sniff. But there was nothing for her to discover, no clue to the smell. Everything which Georgina had used was washed and back in place now. The sharp eyes made a survey of the kitchen, watching Georgina narrowly as the child, having rinsed the dishcloth after its fall, leaned out of the back door to hang it on a bush in the sun, as Uncle Darcy always did.

"You've been taught to be real neat, haven't you?" she said in an approving tone which made Georgina like her better. Then her glance fell on a work-basket which had been left sitting on top of the flour barrel. In it was a piece of half-finished mending. The sharp eyes softened.

"I declare!" she exclaimed. "It's downright pitiful the way that old man tries to do for himself and his poor old wife. It's surprising, though, how well he gets along with the housework and taking care of her and all."

She glanced again at the needle left sticking in the clumsy unfinished seam, and recognized the garment.

"Well, I wish you'd look at that! Even trying to patch her poor old nightgown for her! Can you beat that? Here, child, give it to me. My hands are full with this tray, so just stick it under my arm. I'll mend it this afternoon while I'm setting talking to the company."

She tightened her grip on the bundle which Georgina thrust under her arm, and looked down at it.

"Them pitiful old stiff fingers of his'n!" she exclaimed. "They sure make a botch of sewing, but they don't ever make a botch of being kind. Well, I'm off now. Guess you'd better run in and set with Mis' Darcy for a spell, for she's waked up real natural and knowing now, and seems to crave company."

Georgina went, but paused on the way, seeing the familiar rooms in a new light, since Mrs. Saggs' remarks had given her new and illuminating insight. Everywhere she looked there was something as eloquent as that bit of unfinished mending to bear witness that Uncle Darcy was far more than just a weather-beaten old man with a smile and word of cheer for everybody. Ringing the Towncrier's bell and fishing and blueberrying and telling yarns and helping everybody bear their trouble was the least part of his doings. That was only what the world saw. That was all she had seen herself until this moment.

Now she was suddenly aware of his bigness of soul which made him capable of an infinite tenderness and capacity to serve. His devotion to Aunt Elspeth spread an encircling care around her as a great oak throws the arms of its shade, till her comfort was his constant thought, her happiness his greatest desire.

"Them pitiful, old, stiff fingers of his'n!" How could Mrs. Saggs speak of them so? They were heroic, effectual fingers. Theirs was something far greater than the Midas touch—they transmuted the smallest service into Love's gold.

Georgina, with her long stretching up to books that were "over her head," understood this without being able to put it into words. Nor could she put into words the longing which seized her like a dull ache, for Barby to be loved and cared for like that, to be as constantly and supremely considered. She couldn't understand how Aunt Elspeth, old and wrinkled and childish, could be the object of such wonderful devotion, and Barby, her adorable, winsome Barby, call forth less.

"Not one letter in four long months," she thought bitterly.

"Dan'l," called Aunt Elspeth feebly from the next room, and Georgina went in to assure her that Uncle Darcy was not out in the boat and would not be brought home drowned. He was attending to some important business and would be back bye and bye. In the meantime, she was going to hang her prism in the window where the sun could touch it and let the rainbow fairies dance over the bed.

The gay flashes of color, darting like elfin wings here and there as Georgina twisted the ribbon, pleased Aunt Elspeth as if she were a child. She lifted a thin, shriveled hand to catch at them and gave a weak little laugh each time they eluded her grasp. It was such a thin hand, almost transparent, with thick, purplish veins standing out on it. Georgina glanced at her own and wondered if Aunt Elspeth's ever could have been dimpled and soft like hers. It did not seem possible that this frail old woman with the snowy-white hair and sunken cheeks could ever have been a rosy child like herself. As if in answer to her thought, Aunt Elspeth spoke, groping again with weak, ineffectual passes after the rainbows.

"I can't catch them. They bob around so. That's the way I used to be, always on the move. They called me 'Bouncing Bet!'"

"Tell me about that time," urged Georgina. Back among early memories Aunt Elspeth's mind walked with firm, unfailing tread. It was only among those of later years that she hesitated and groped her way as if lost in fog. By the time the clock had struck the hours twice more Georgina felt that she knew intimately a mischievous girl whom her family called Bouncing Bet for her wild ways, but who bore no trace of a resemblance to the feeble old creature who recounted her pranks.

And the blue-eyed romp who could sail a boat like a boy or swim like a mackerel grew up into a slender slip of a lass with a shy grace which made one think of a wild-flower. At least that is what the old daguerreotype showed Georgina when Aunt Elspeth sent her rummaging through a trunk to find it. It was taken in a white dress standing beside a young sailor in his uniform. No wonder Uncle Darcy looked proud in the picture. But Georgina never would have known it was Uncle Darcy if she hadn't been told. He had changed, too.

The picture make Georgina think of one of Barby's songs, and presently when Aunt Elspeth was tired of talking she sang it to her:

"Hand in hand when our life was May. Hand in hand when our hair is gray. Sorrow and sun for everyone As the years roll on. Hand in hand when the long night tide Gently covers us side by side——— Ah, lad, though we know not when, Love will be with us forever then. Always the same, Darby my own, Always the same to your old wife Joan!"

After that there were other songs which Aunt Elspeth asked for, "Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast," and "Robin Adair." Then came a long tiresome pause when Georgina didn't know what to do next, and Aunt Elspeth turned her head restlessly on the pillow and seemed uneasy.

Georgina wished with all her heart she was out of the stuffy little bedroom. If she had gone with the others, she would be speeding along the smooth, white road now, coming home from Brewster, with the wind and sunshine of all the wide, free outdoors around her.

Aunt Elspeth drew a long, tired sigh.

"Maybe you'd like me to read to you," ventured Georgina. She hesitated over making such an offer, because there were so few books in the house. Nothing but the almanac looked interesting. Aunt Elspeth assented, and pointed out a worn little volume of devotions on top of the bureau, saying:

"That's what Dan'l reads me on Sundays."

Georgina opened it. Evidently it had been compiled for the use of sea- faring people, for it was full of the promises that sailor-folk best understand; none of the shepherd psalms or talk of green pastures and help-giving hills. It was all about mighty waters and paths through the deep. She settled herself comfortably in the low rocking-chair beside the bed, tossed back her curls and was about to begin, when one of the rainbow lights from the prism danced across the page. She waited, smiling, until it glimmered away. Then she read the verses on which it had shone.

"All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me, yet the Lord will command His loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me."

The sweet little voice soothed the troubled spirit that listened like music.

"When thou passeth through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers: they shall not overflow thee.... Thus saith the Lord which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters."

Aunt Elspeth reached out a groping hand for Georgina's and took the soft little fingers in hers. Georgina didn't want to have her hand held, especially in such a stiff, bony clasp. It made her uncomfortable to sit with her arm stretched up in such a position, but she was too polite to withdraw it, so she read on for several pages.

"He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. So He bringeth them into their desired haven."

Attracted by the sound of heavy breathing, she looked up. Aunt Elspeth was asleep. Georgina laid the book on the table, and slowly, very slowly began to raise herself out of the chair, afraid of arousing the sleeper who still held her hand. As she stood up, the board in the floor under her squeaked. She was afraid to take another step or to try to pull her hand away. She had come to the end of her resources for entertainment, and she was afraid Aunt Elspeth's next awakening might be to a crying, restless mood which she could not control. So she sat down again.

It was very still in the bedroom. A fly buzzed on the outside of the window screen, and away off on another street the "accommodation" was going by. She could hear the bells jingling on the horses. As she sat thus, not even rocking, but just jiggling the chair a trifle, the words she had read began to come back to her after a while like a refrain: "So He bringeth them into their desired haven. So He bringeth them into their desired haven." She whispered them over and over as she often whispered songs, hearing the music which had no tone except in her thought.

And presently, as the whispered song repeated itself, the words began to bring a wonderful sense of peace and security. She did not realize what it was that was speaking to her through them. It was the faith which had lived so long in these lowly little rooms. It was the faith which had upborne Uncle Darcy year after year, helping him to steer onward in the confidence that the Hand he trusted would fulfil all its promises. She felt the subtle influence that goes out from such lives, without knowing what it was that touched her. She was conscious of it only as she was conscious of the nearness of mignonette when its fragrance stole in from the flower-bed under the window. They were both unseen but the mignonette's fragrance was wonderfully sweet, and the feeling of confidence, breathing through the words of the old psalm was wonderfully strong. Some day she, too, would be brought, and Barby would he brought into "their desired haven."

Georgina was tired. It had been a full day, beginning with that digging in the dunes. Presently she began to nod. Then the rocking chair ceased to sway. When the clock struck again she did not hear it. She was sound asleep with her hand still clasped in Aunt Elspeth's.



Chapter XXI

On the Trail of the Wild-Cat Woman



Meanwhile, the pursuing party had made the trip to Brewster and were on their way home. At the various small towns where they stopped to ask questions, they found that the patent-medicine vendors had invariably followed one course. They had taken supper at the hotel, but after each evening's performance had driven into the country a little way to camp for the night, in the open. At Orleans an acquaintance of Mr. Milford's in a feed store had much to say about them.

"I don't know whether they camp out of consideration for the wild-cat, or whether it's because they're attached to that rovin', gypsy life. They're good spenders, and from the way they sold their liniment here last night, you'd think they could afford to put up at a hotel all the time and take a room for the cat in the bargain. You needn't tell me that beast ever saw the banks of the Brazos. I'll bet they caught it up in the Maine woods some'rs. But they seem such honest, straightforward sort of folks, somehow you have to believe 'em. They're a friendly pair, too, specially the old lady. Seems funny to hear you speak of her as the wild-cat woman. That name is sure a misfit for her."

Mr. Milford thought so himself, when a little later he came across her, a mile out of Brewster. She was sitting in the wooden rocking chair in one end of the ivagon, placidly darning a pair of socks, while she waited for her husband to bring the horses from some place up in the woods where he had taken them for water. They had been staked by the roadside all night to graze. The wild-cat was blinking drowsily in its cage, having just been fed.

Some charred sticks and a little pile of ashes by the roadside, showed where she had cooked dinner over a camp-fire, but the embers were carefully extinguished and the frying pan and dishes were stowed out of sight in some mysterious compartment under the wagon bed, as compactly as if they had been parts of a Chinese puzzle. Long experience on the road had taught her how to pack with ease and dexterity.

She looked up with interest as the automobile drew out of the road, and stopped alongside the wagon. She was used to purchasers following them out of town for the liniment after a successful show like last night's performance.

Despite the feedman's description of her, Mr. Milford had expected to see some sort of an adventuress such as one naturally associates with such a business, and when he saw the placid old lady with the smooth, gray hair, and met the gaze of the motherly eyes peering over her spectacles at him, he scarcely knew how to begin. Uncle Darcy, growing impatient at the time consumed in politely leading up to the object of their coming, fidgetted in his seat. At last he could wait no longer for remarks about weather and wild-cats. Such conversational paths led nowhere. He interrupted abruptly.

"I'm the Towncrier from Provincetown, ma'am. Did you lose anything while you were there?"

"Well, now," she began slowly. "I can't say where I lost it. I didn't think it was in Provincetown though. I made sure it was some place between Harwichport and Orleans, and I had my man post notices in both those places."

"And what was it you lost?" inquired Mr. Milford politely. He had cautioned his old friend on the way down at intervals of every few miles, not to build his hopes up too much on finding that this woman was the owner of the pouch.

"You may have to follow a hundred different clues before you get hold of the right one," he warned him. "We're taking this trip on the mere chance that we'll find the owner, just because two children associated the pouch in their memory with the odor of liniment. It is more than likely they're mistaken and that this is all a wild-goose chase."